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 Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 3:14 pm
This is a story from a book my mom gave me when I was little. This was always my favorite story because it was less brutal then the other ones in the book. So, let me type to you word by word, the celtic tale of The Selkie Wife.
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 3:33 pm
~PART 1~ It is said by those who know that seals were once humans who drowned in the sea. Now only their wise, soft, loving eyes betray their human past. Yet sometimes, when no-one is around, they come ashore, cast off their animal skins, and dance upon the sand. There was once a cottage that stood by itself on a cliff, and this cottage was the home of a lonely fisherman. Although he fished and laid traps until the tiredness of his bones drove the dreams away, there were times when loneliness made his eyes overflow and rivers of tears coursed down his cheeks. On evening in late summer, the fisherman was sitting on a rock, this chin cupped in his hands, gazing out to sea. The distant sunset gave out a rich glow and the calm sea gleamed pink and gold. All at once, he caught snatches of songs and laughter coming from the seaward side of the rocks at the far end of the shore. Creeping forwards, he crossed the sand, climbed up the rocks, and peered over the side. There below him by the water's edge in a sheltered inlet was a ring of women dancing, singing-all as naked as the sun-splashed rocks. Never in all his years had the fisherman seen such lovely faces, such graceful limbs, such smooth skin the color of moonlight. "Aye, I know you," he murmured to himself. "Selkies! And what if I should take a wild wee skin for myself?" With these words he scrambled back down the rock, ran across the sand, and snatched up a silvery skin before they saw him. When they finally noticed the man, each selkie made a dash to seize her skin, crying and yelping like seal cubs at dawn. Then, diving into the sea, they swam swiftly away, pulling on their seal skins as they went. Meanwhile the fisherman was making off with the selkie skin under his arm. But before he reached the cliff path, he heard soft footsteps padding quickly after him and the sound of someone weeping. As he turned he saw a woman holding out her arms to him. "Wait, sir," she cried."Give me back my selkie skin!"[/align} The moon shone upon her naked form and two big crystal tears rolled down her cheeks. The fisherman thought she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. "You'll not be away to sea again," he said. "You'll stay with me and be my good wife. " PART 2 COMING SOON
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 3:39 pm
PART 2!!!!
"But cannot be that," she said. "I'm not yours to take. I am of another folk."
"If you become my wife," the fisherman continued, "I'll return your selkie skin in seven years to the day." It seemed she had no choice. The fisherman put his plaid cloak about the woman and let her home to his cottage. There he wrapped her in a blanket and gave her supper...rount, flat bannock cakes, and hot brose or porridge. While she was eating, he stole out to the barn, folded up the skin, and hid it on a beam beneath the roof. In the course of time she had a child; there was no bonnier boy in all the isle- he had large,gentle eyes and smooth brown skin. How he loved his mother:he would rub his cheek against hers, inhale the odor of her skin, caress her long brown hair. Smiling, she would show him three suede pouches she had sewn herself. One was full of berries, one of dried flowers, one of little stones and shells. Then she wold press her palm to the sandy earth and say, "What is there?" "Nothing. What could there be?" he'd reply With a little laugh, she would raise her hand. And there upon the soil were spread pretty patterns: rings within rings, the moon and the stats, tiny magpie feet, wild geese flying. Then, with the swift movement of her hand, his mother would make new patterns with tender twigs of pine, reindeer antlers, rippling rays of sunshine, foaming ocean waves, fluffy clouds-all formed from the shells and stones, berries, and blossoms in her three pouches. She also taught her son to make his on patterns, to sing strange, wistful lullabies, and to cut a hollow stem from a reed with which to warble like a blackbird or a nightingale. Yet, as one year blended with the next, the seal-wife changed. Her bright shining eyes began to fade, her sight grew dim, her soft skin became wrinkled and dry, her thick brown hair grew grey and thin; and her body lost its full rounded form. Soon she was no more than skin streched over tightly aching bones. At long last the seven years had passed and one night she went to the fisherman to claim back her selkie skin. But he would not give it up;he feared she would return to her ocean home. Their angry words awoke their little son. In fear he watched from his bed through half-shut eyes as his father flung open the door of the cottage and strode into the night. The boy loved his mother deeply and was afraid to lose her;softly he cried himself back to sleep.
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 3:41 pm
-PART 3- Next Morning, the boy awoke to find his father gone and his mother still asleep. As he stepped out of the cottage, a gust of wind pushed him toward the barn. Stumbling through the door of the barn, he felt a soft blow upon his head-the wind had blown down a bundle that had been lying on the beam. He picked up the bundle and shook it out. He knew at once it belonged to his mother; he could smell her scent on it. As he pressed it to his face, breathing in its smell, her spirit passed into him and swelled the love that filled his heart. Quickly, he rushed back to the cottage and laid the skin upon his mothers sleeping form. In an instant she was awake, leaping out of bed and pulling on the skin. "Oh, my darling boy," she sighed. "I must away to my own home." Her words were like a knife to his heart. "Take me with you,Mother," he said, tears filling his eyes. She glanced at the beckoning sea, then down at her little son-and she hesitated. How could she abandon him, her own flesh and blood? Picking him up, she tucked the boy up under her arm an ran across the heather to the cliff, hurrying down the path towards the beach. Then she stopped, uncertain what to do next. All at once, taking his face in her hands, she breathed three sweet breaths into his lungs and clutching her precious bundle, dived into the roaring foam. They swam together and breathed like two grey seals until they came to an underwater cave, where a whole family of seals was playing, eating, singing, dancing. An old silver seal approached: he greeted the woman seal and her child, calling him "little grandson" "Welcome home, daughter," he said with a smile."A bonnie child you bring." "He must return to his own folk, Father," she said. "His time is not yet come;he cannot stay with us beneath the sea. " She wept. The old seal wept. And the half-seal wept too. Seven days passed and the mothers seal's eyes and hair grew bright, her sight became as keen as ever, her skin was smooth and glossy and she grew plump and well again.
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 3:43 pm
PART 4 FINAL Now she could swim wild and free, no more a prisoner on the land. When the time came, the grandfather and mother swam towards the shore with the child between them. And they gently placed him on a rock near his father's home. Before she dropped back into the waves, the mother told her son, "I'll be with you always. Aye, and when you lift you voice t sing, I'll breathe into your lungs a sweet breath of song." Then she was gone The boy grew up to be a great teller of stories and singer of songs. Some said he had te gift of seal's breath inside him-the spirit of his selkie mother. Sometimes, in the grey mists of dawn or fading dusk, folk would see him kneeling in his boat upon the swell;he seemed to be talking to a seal who often swam near the shore. Non dared hunt her, for she was said to be mother to the man and the protector of the earth itself. Did not her deep eyes say it was so?
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:43 am
FINISHED! Finally I got myself to it down and type it word-by-word. Soo, also I want an vote on what to do next!
~Sea Wind
~Hine-Moa
~The Precious Pearl
~The Old Man Of The Sea
ENJOY THE STORY!!!!
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